Chapter 4
“Have you considered not attending cocktail parties?” Heath asked, beleaguered. The dock had been cleared of all non-emergency services folks with the exception of me and Muffin, who were officially witnesses. Or, based on the looks I was getting from the emergency services personnel, suspects.
“I’m starting to think it might be a good idea,” I muttered, queasy enough that my mouth burned with it. “Um, I... I don’t suppose that’s not Tubbs?”
Heath sighed, his expression softening with pity, I supposed, or maybe bemusement at my naiveite. “The i.d. in his wallet matches his face, so unless he’s got an identical twin, that’s definitely him.”
Muffin pressed his huge, warm body against my leg and I just went with it, crouching down to hug him around the neck while I tried to get myself together. It wasn’t that I was particularly upset Tubbs was...was dead, it was just that I’d found him.
Found another dead body.
One that I had a connection to.
“Cherry already get your statement?”
“Yeah. Soon as you guys got here.”
He let out a small sigh, probably not even aware he’d been clenched up. “Okay then. Go home. Don’t call, don’t text, don’t do anything except get Muffin back home and, I don’t know, have a drink or two. And for the love of all that is holy, stay there.”
That was me told, I supposed. Heath strode to join the deputies, his fingers drumming a restless and irritated rhythm on his thigh.
He’d been on a not-date, I remembered. Cherry had said as much before getting down to business.
A not-date with Ralphie Hemmings, having dinner to talk about upgrading the department’s computer system out of the late 90s stranglehold the current set up had on them.
Allegedly.
Muffin at my side, I sat on the hard bench against the railing, watching the deputies murmur with Heath, all three of them careful to avoid the white body bag on the deck.
It was dreamy and weird and I wanted to be sick.
Instead, I waved down a deputy scurrying onto the deck.
She frowned at me for a beat then, her expression clearing, strode over.
“Damien Murphy, right? I know about you. If you’re done with your interview, you should head on home.
” When I hesitated, she sighed, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll ask Heath if someone can give you a ride home. ”
When no one came back to me in a few minutes, I stood, tearing my gaze away from the scene in the cabin. Muffin whimpered and danced at my side. “Yeah,” I muttered, voice shaky on the quickening breeze, “let’s go home.”
#
BEN WAS HALFWAY DOWN the front walk when Muffin lunged out of my grasp and made a beeline for his knees. Deft from months of experience, Ben turned to the side and let Muffin barrel past, onto the porch where he danced to the tune of Tony barking from inside. "Heath just called," was all Ben said.
I nodded. "I need a shower and a drink, in that order."
He trailed after me into the house, peeling off to wipe off Muffin's muddy paws while I trudged up the steps, unable to shake the vision of Tubbs’ dead body and how wrong it was to see him so still. So empty.
I took so long in the shower, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, that Ben came knocking. "Be out in a minute."
He hesitated—I could feel how still he was on the other side of the door—then finally said "Okay. I made some tea. My dad... He made this blend whenever things sucked so I thought maybe..."
I stared at the door through the cloudy glass shower cubicle. "Okay," I rasped. "Um. Thank you?" Silence was the only reply.
Ben was in the kitchen, puttering around the stove when I shuffled in a few minutes later.
I was swimming in an oversized sweatshirt I'd gotten from Lost in the Wash, a really cool thrift shop in Van Nuys that sold stuff people abandoned at laundries. The shirt was ancient and said Desperately Seeking on the front, the remnants of the name Eleanor in flaking puffy paint underneath. Max and I had googled our butts off and found out it had been a promo line of sweatshirts sold at Walmart for some Madonna movie before we were born, packaged with little tubs of puffy paint so people could add their own names. It was ridiculous and cheesy and tacky and reminded me of LA and Max and sitting on the floor in my crappy apartment overlooking the alley. I kind of wanted to live in that sweatshirt for a while, at least until I stopped seeing Tubbs’ wide, empty eyes staring up at me.
This never happened to me in LA, I thought miserably.
Ben's small, tentative smile rested oddly on his face and, for some reason, that made me smile in return.
"You look constipated," I offered, and he rolled his eyes, a small flicker of a real smile ghosting his features before he sat across from me at the table.
He pushed a cup of blueberry green tea towards me and nodded at the sugar bowl. "Thanks," I murmured.
He doctored up his own tea and, in relative silence, we sipped.
"You're a nicer guy than you want people to think," I said, giving my tea an unnecessary stir. "Careful, or people are going to start thinking you're more a Bingham than a Darcy."
"I'm sorry, what?"
A tiny snicker worked its way free from the knot of anxiety in my throat. "Seriously, you really need to watch any version of Pride and Prejudice. Or," I said with an expansive gesture, holding my cup in a sort of broad salute in his direction, "read the book. Bingham was a very nice man."
"I've read the book," he replied dryly. "And MacFadyen wasn't hard on the eyes but Colin Firth was a formative experience in realizing my sexuality."
"I stand corrected," I grinned, hiding my smile behind my cup. "Totally a closet Bingham."
"Darcy was nicer than people thought," Ben protested. "What he did for Lizzie's family after Wickham pulled his crap, for one."
"Hmmm."
Ben scowled. "Nothing like Bingham," he muttered.
We were gearing up for an argument. We'd had dozens of largely ridiculous, unserious ones over the past few months, ranging from what exactly the color of the mint toothpaste in his bathroom would be called to whether or not he should switch from oak to hickory for the fireplaces come autumn.
The only really serious ones involved Margie and her upcoming trial.
Her attorney had reached out to me regarding testifying and Ben had been horrified to discover I didn't have representation.
It was still a very sore point between us. He left his friend Mario's card in conspicuous places for me about once a week now.
"What's your obsession with Pride and Prejudice anyway?" he demanded suddenly. "She wrote other books, you know."
“Did she?” I asked mildly, taking a sip of my tea and watching the emotions flit over his face. I managed to hide a small, tired smile just as he finally realized I was kidding. “I’m not sure if I should be amused or offended you had to wonder if I was joking.”
He tipped his head consideringly. “You’re not only joking, you’re deflecting.”
“It’s been a long and not great night.” Setting my cup down, I stared into the pale liquid, gathering my thoughts in a messy mental bundle.
“Maybe if I hadn’t agreed to meet him, he wouldn’t be dead,” I sighed.
“Maybe he’d have been, I don’t know, off with the ladies and Nate being a dick to waitstaff or something. Or already on his way back to LA. Or—”
“Or,” Ben interrupted, “you didn’t agree to meet him.
He asked—ordered—you to do it and went to the boat on the assumption you’d be there.
And,” he added, his argument gaining steam, “Heath said it looked like an accident. A slip and fall. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have done it in front of you?
Accidents happen, Damien. And they’re unfair. And terrible. And unpredictable.”
I started to shake my head, pausing mid-motion when something wiggled free from that handful of thoughts I’d gathered.
“He wasn’t alone. Not before I showed up, I mean.
His neighbors—er, the people in the slip next to the Beth—the guy yelled at me about making a lot of noise earlier.
Ben—” I’d ridden the Tower of Terror with Max and one of his girlfriends once.
That had nothing on the sudden plunge my stomach executed as I stared across the table at Ben. “I don’t think—"
“No.”
“Ben, listen—”
He groaned, tipping his face up to the ceiling, looking for some guidance from the stamped copper tiles. “Damien, don’t.”
“I need to call Heath. I didn’t tell Cherry about that part. I... I forgot. Or didn’t think about it. Oh my god, will I get in trouble for filing a false report or something?” I gasped, pressing my hand to my chest over my suddenly racing heart. “Oh, shit!”
“No, you won’t get in trouble,” Ben bit out, eyes closed and jaw tight.
“Because you didn’t file a report. You answered questions as the person who discovered a dead body.
And it was most likely an accident, Damien.
I know the incident this summer was fairly traumatizing on several levels, but sometimes it’s not a duck you’re following but a goose. ”
“What? Wait, no, I got this—it may look and quack like a duck but it’s a goose I’m seeing, and the goose is leading me on a wild chase?”
Ben’s gaze drifted as he parsed that out, then he nodded. “Yes. That.”
“There were raised voices loud enough to be heard over a get together next door,” I said, ticking off my points on my fingers as I went. “Tubbs was obviously expecting someone before me because there were glasses and a bottle of vodka out on the table. And—”